


prompt: five times alistair theirin ordered a milkshake and one time he just had water

by Ulthar



Series: Terrible Prompts Challenge [2]
Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Crack, Drabble, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-04
Updated: 2015-08-04
Packaged: 2018-04-12 22:10:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4496619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ulthar/pseuds/Ulthar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I asked Tumblr for bad fanfiction prompts.  This one was...actually pretty good.</p>
            </blockquote>





	prompt: five times alistair theirin ordered a milkshake and one time he just had water

“FINE CULINARY DELICACIES, STRAIGHT FROM ORLAIS” called the vendor, and the Warden made the entire party stop to take a look. Leliana bought a paper-wrapped package of sweets and cajoled Morrigan into sharing them with her, laughing when the hedgewitch gasped as the candy touched her tongue.

Sten chose a piece of meat and sniffed it suspiciously. Zevran bought a dozen strange-looking things and paid in bars of gold which Alistair had never seen before. Oghren spent ten minutes examining the alcohol selection before Wynne tapped him on the shoulder and suggested a particularly old and mysterious-looking bottle.

Alistair squinted up at the menu of made-to-order drinks, not knowing what most of them were, feeling too foolish to ask. Eventually, he settled on something he understood the individual components of, if not what they meant together. “Um,” he said to get the vendor’s attention, “one ‘milk-shake,’ please.”

“What kind? Chocolate, vanilla, or strawberry?”

“Strawberry,” he replied, feeling much better immediately. He knew what strawberries were. He liked them.

Alistair thanked the vendor as she handed him a cup of something sludgy and pink, and walked over to where the Warden was sitting on a tree stump, pulling meat off some kind of fancy roasted bird and tossing the bones one by one to the Mabari waiting patiently at her feet. As Alistair approached, the dog trotted over eagerly and sniffed at the drink in his hand.

“No,” he said, lifting the cup over his head. “Bad dog.” The dog whined. “Don’t act like you don’t understand me, you greedy mutt.” The dog growled. “Aw, go back to begging for chicken,” he said.

At that, the war dog glanced back to where Serana was sitting with her bird. She made some kind of face.

Evidently, the dumb dog took that as a command, because a second later Alistair was on his back, the milkshake was on the ground, and the idiot dog was going mad licking the drink Alistair never got to taste out of the mud.  
——-  
The second time they crossed paths with this particular vendor, Morrigan bought her own packet of sweets, and Oghren stayed well away from the stranger and dustier bottles, while Wynne laughed. Alistair asked for a second milkshake, and did not seek out the irritating elf.

The dog came anyway, barreling out of the underbrush and neatly snatching the drink from his hand before disappearing. When he next saw it, it looked incredibly smug. Alistair wanted to kick it, but then remembered Wynne had threatened to stop healing him if he kept doing that. He swore and kicked rocks instead.  
——–  
The third time, Zevran told Sten he had no money to lend, but came back with an array of very expensive-looking foods nobody could remember seeing him actually purchase.  
Alistair bought a vanilla milkshake, praying that the dog wouldn’t like vanilla for some reason, and praying that he would, since he had no idea what it was.

It turned out that the dog did like vanilla, and that sticking your sword in a tree in a fit of rage doesn’t make you feel better, it just makes your sword dull.  
——-  
The fourth time, Alistair considered not buying anything at all, but couldn’t not. This had become important to him, out of sheer spite. He bought a chocolate milkshake, and lost it in the familiar way, but felt slightly vindicated when the dog threw up a few hours later.  
——-  
Convinced the vile animal had learned its lesson, Alistair ordered a chocolate milkshake with confidence on the fifth time they crossed paths with the food vendor and walked back into the middle of camp to drink the damn thing. The dog came up to him slowly this time and watched him for a moment. He stared it down. Or, he tried.

The dog threw up again that night, but it didn’t seem to care.  
——  
After months of walking back and forth across Ferelden, fighting darkspawn, engaging in political squabbles, running highly specious errands for people Alistair didn’t like or trust, they met the same food vendor, and Alistair almost cried. He tried to say “milkshake, please,” and couldn’t. He just couldn’t. 

“Can I just have some water?” he said, “with lemon,” he continued, so it actually seemed like something one might buy instead of just taking it from a river.

He walked back to camp, dejected, where the demon dog sniffed curiously at him before trotting off to beg from somebody else.

Sten watched the whole exchange, and gave Alistar a solemn nod.


End file.
